Allergies - General

For the majority of severe allergy sufferers, avoidance of the specific allergens that trigger their reactions and being prepared to treat those that occur with an immediate shot of epinephrine are the only options. Some people allergic to food, insect stings, or medications may outgrow or spontaneously become tolerant to their allergens. For others, immunotherapy can offer a cure.

Cats take all the heat for sparking allergies, but some folks sneeze, wheeze, and itch around dogs, too.

As long as your allergies are mild, taking steps to minimize pet dander -- dried flakes of skin that trigger allergic reactions -- can help minimize your symptoms. Here's how:

Long Acting Beta Agonists (LABA) are common adjuvants with cortisones in the treatment of Asthma. Yet, the FDA has issued a 'black box warning' about these drugs.
A black box warning signifies that deaths are associated with the use of LABAs.

Asthma is a disease of the lungs in which the airways become blocked or narrowed causing breathing difficulty, and sometimes respiratory arrest in severe cases. This chronic disease affects nearly 20 million Americans.

The main treatment for allergies is to avoid the exposures that trigger your symptoms. But avoidance is not always easy, and in some cases may be impossible. The first question to ask about treatment is: "Is it necessary?"

There is no specific treatment for measles, just providing necessary supportive therapy such as hydration and antipyretics. (Pneumonia may be a complication.) Vitamin A supplementation has been shown to improve the outcome of measles and is recommended.

The Lung Association gives this proven advice: The best way to treat allergies is to prevent them - stay away from the things that you are allergic to. No treatment will work as well as simply avoiding the allergen in the first place.

Although the first report by the Institute for Health was released in 1999, stating that medical errors were responsible for as many as 98,000 deaths each year, when you read the statistics from the 2006 report, you will be shocked to learn that hospital patients should still expect to suffer one adverse drug event (due to human error) every day they remain hospitalized. Not very comforting... Perhaps legislation is needed to ensure (at the very least) that prescriptions are PRINTED legibly.